This was a poem I memorized long before I was sharing poems with others. The story is that at one point the poet Rilke and artist Rodin shared a home. Rodin was an experienced painter who went at his work from sun-up to sun-down, but Rilke was a young poet, easily distracted. Rodins advice for Rilke when he wandered a bit was, Travail! |Travail! (Work! Work!) Rilke would go for a walk to the zoo & write about what he saw. This poem speaks to me of a maginificent strength and wildness in each of us that can lose heart if it is caged. (The video linked in the comment below is what brought it to mind. I know many who are sceptical about communications with animals but this story touched my heart.) Panther (In the Jardin des Plantes, Paris) His gaze is so wearied from the bars Passing by, that it can hold no more. It’s as if a thousand bars were given him: And behind the thousand bars, no world. The soft pace of his powerful, supple stride, That draws him round in tightened circles, Is like the dance of force about a centre, In which a greater will stands paralysed. Only, at times, the curtain of his pupils Silently rises – Then an image enters, Rushes through his tense, arrested limbs, And echoing, inside his heart, is gone. ~Rainer Maria Rilke
Posted on: Fri, 07 Feb 2014 14:00:01 +0000
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